My Thoughts on the Government's Coronavirus Response, From a University Student
With Europe’s highest death toll and having become the worst hit country economically in the G7 amongst just some of the pandemic response failures, the British government has mishandled COVID-19 immensely compared to other nations. Costly and tragic mistakes have been a major factor in Britain becoming among the worst COVID-affected countries in the world. And for young people like me, it really feels like we’re losing some of the most prime years of our lives to a virus which has been allowed to do unfettered damage to the country.
COVID has been with us for over a year now, and it has been nearly a year since the virus began to hammer Britain and the globe.
A final year university student at this time, the pandemic has resulted in all my classes this year being online. Since lockdowns began to be imposed last March, I’ve basically only really stayed home and gone out for necessary reasons. I haven’t seen a friend in person for nearly a year, though fortunately I keep regular contact with them over social media. For young people like me, we’ve seen our social lives grind to a halt. The things in life that we appreciated, i.e going out, travelling, hanging out with pals and more, they’re all non-existent. Many have suffered bad mental health and with job prospects being minimal, many of us feel tired and disillusioned with life.
The pandemic’s effects have affected everyone’s lives in some form, including myself. We now all wear masks and wash our hands a ton, things that were alien to many in British society previously. Hospitals are now the front line of a war with a deadly virus, and medical workers are the determined and skilful fighters. Indeed, during an end-of-life visit to my late grandmother in hospital, I couldn’t help but feel how scary of a place the hospital seemed.
2020 has been a tragic year for many globally and Britain is no exception. If anything, we’ve seen horrors and untold damage other nations are too frightened to even dream of. With over four million confirmed COVID cases and a death toll of over 116,000 (as of today) and with daily death counts having reached above 1,800, the UK has been terribly affected by coronavirus and economically, suffered its worst recession in over 300 years. In addition, there is severe damage to society and the jobs market and more.
All this makes one think, did things really have to be like this? In hindsight, I guess we can all say things could’ve been done differently. But in all fairness, in my opinion, the government could’ve done a lot better. While there are good things about the government’s response ie. a successful and large inoculation programme so far and furlough schemes for millions and more, there is more bad than good in their pandemic response. And of course, COVID-19 was going to affect Britain in some kind of way anyway but I feel this scale of damage could’ve been avoidable.
First of all, the lack of preparation on the government’s part can only be described as shocking. While admittedly the pandemic caught pretty much every country off guard, I feel the government definitely missed the ball with COVID and there were many occasions on which things could’ve been done differently.
The procurement of vital equipment including PPE, masks, ventilators and more should’ve been an utmost priority as soon as China announced its lockdown in Wuhan in January 2020. In addition, a large and robust adequate testing system should’ve been built instead of building a system capable of only handling a minimal number of infections. And most importantly, I feel border checks should’ve been tightened especially from late February 2020. Nobody barring UK nationals, permanent residents and those with exemptions should’ve been allowed to enter the country and those that did should have faced a hotel quarantine or rigorous testing, plans for which should’ve been developed earlier. In my opinion, had the border been closed or at least tightly restricted, community transmission across the country may have been lower and thus directly and indirectly, the virus wouldn’t have caused immense damage across society overall.
Having done research for a COVID-19 related story during work experience at a city newspaper, I discovered that airports conducted no checks on travellers coming from COVID hotspots at the time such as Italy and Iran. Looking back, at that point we set the scene for COVID to take root and rip through the population.
The government’s actions throughout the pandemic since then, have been marred by incompetency and fatal timing. Indeed for example, the UK only went into lockdown on the 23th March 2020, while other European nations including France and Spain did so within the previous fortnight. The events in the following weeks began to show the cost of the government’s mistakes. Prime Minister Boris Johnson himself ended up fighting for his life after a coronavirus infection.
While by summer 2020, the spread of COVID in Britain had become relatively low, even at that point, it was clear that the government hadn’t really learned as much as they should’ve. The Cummings lockdown scandal and its after effects, a failing contact tracing system and a litany of other failures were all examples of a lack of regard for the pandemic response. Other failures including the now-criticised Eat Out To Help Out scheme, the permission to travel abroad quarantine-free to nations where COVID was rampant and the encouragement of university students to return to campus contributed to increasing coronavirus infections that eventually became the foundations of the UK’s deadly second wave.
With the government not even reimbursing tuition fees for university students this year, nor providing much aid for young people specifically (despite young people, especially those aged between 16 and 25 being disproportionately hit), it really feels like young people have been ignored during their pandemic. It really feels like our concerns and priorities have been side-lined. Many of us feel lost, hopeless and confused, with negative emotions consuming us intensely during what are supposed to be some of the happiest and carefree years of our lives. Indeed, research has found that those aged between 16 and 25 (dubbed ‘‘Generation COVID) have had their trust in governments damaged long term as a result of coronavirus. As a result, there is no doubt that such an inefficient and bewildering government response like ours will have long-term implications.
Overall, I feel that many things could’ve been done differently. There are definitely lessons that need to be learned. And especially regarding the post-COVID world, there needs to be more provision and help available for young people to help cope with the virus’ after effects including job losses and lack of opportunities. There needs to be prolonged investment in us and support given to tackle problems facing us or else we really risk becoming a lost generation. It shouldn’t have to be that young people feel that their future is bleak, that their lives are going to be bleak and worry and be insecure about life ahead.
In the event, a pandemic occurs again in the future, I really hope things will be done differently and that we can learn from our experiences and mistakes. Or else, things will only be bad and we’ll only be causing even further damage.
Written by Rean Rehman
My name is Rean and I’m currently a final year Journalism and Politics student. I’ve always loved writing and have been passionate about it since I was a child. I’m a huge fan of politics, reading and music, and I also love long walks and playing video games. I just want to live my best life and be chill and happy. I don’t know the future but I hope whatever it is, I’ll be happy with it.